Difficulty level

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I like to play on the fairest setting, because too often enimies get crazy bonuses that make the fight more tedious than difficult at the higher difficulties. If a mod like SCS exists or there is a hardcore mode, I'll give that a try when I feel like a challenge.

 

As to the special modes, I'll probably play the game first to get a grasp of it, then start trying those out to see what results in the best experience.

[Labadal]

On my first playthrough, I play on normal. If I like the game enough, I will try it on higher difficulties.

[Lephys]

I used to only ever play on normal (or, if it was an instance where there were like 50 degrees of difficulty -- Cakewalk, Very Easy, Easy, Luke Easy, Sub-Normal, Normal, A Little Rougher Than Normal, Not-Quite Hard, Relatively Hard, Hard, More Hard, REALLY Hard, Stupidly Hard, Literally Impossible -- heh... well, then I'd play a little above normal sometimes.)

 

But, now, I've kinda gotten into trying out hard difficulties. I generally give a game a test run on hard, then fall back to normal if I need to. Really depends on the game, too. XCOM: Enemy Unknown? Not ever going to play that on Classic, probably. There's just too much ridiculousness to overcome (like the fact that aliens freakin' get to insta-move on YOUR TURN when you discover them from 3 miles away... that and too much RNG that screws you over). But, if it's just a matter of hard requiring you to actively be that much more careful/precise/efficient, it can often be pretty fun if it doesn't go overboard.

 

A few things I'll actually play on the hardest difficulty. Mass Effect 3 is probably the best experience I've had with the toughest difficulty setting. I completed Mass Effect 2 on Insanity as well, but it was a little more ridiculous in place. Then, contrastingly, Dragon Age 2 on Insanity was one of the worst things ever. It wasn't even "difficult" anymore. It was just ludicrous. Everything had 9,000 health, and drank a healing potion of +8,000HP every time you got it down to that final thousand. It was all just attrition at that point. Not to mention everything was immune to like 3 magic types, minimum, so playing a Mage became an exercise in frustration.

[Sarex]

Are console commands confirmed to be in (link)? Ill abuse the hell out of that if so.

 

It's just a guess on my part, but I don't see why they wouldn't be.

[PIP-Clownboy]

First playthrough will definitely be max difficulty (i'll be learning the mechanics in beta), don't see a point in playing through on easy or normal. Subsequent playthroughs will be max difficulty + mods.

 

Generally I play ironman, though, I doubt that would be the wisest decision for a day one first run with the possibility of a killer bug tanking your campaign mid/late game. So probably iron honor system first time around.

Edited July 16, 2014 by PIP-Clownboy

[Zwiebelchen]

My latest try on an ironman in tactical games was XCOM, where I did an ironman + hardest difficulty run.

 

As the difficulty curve of that game is pretty much inverted (The game is much harder at the beginning of the game than it is at the end of the game), I stopped halfway through and called it a success.

However, I had to restart from the beginning at least 10 times, as I kept losing my men at the first terror mission (stupid melee chrysalids with ridicolous damage output and I-will-move-first zombie spawns). After that, it was pretty much a walk in the park.

 

Ironman modes are incredibly fun if 2 conditions are met:

1) The game is almost bugfree and has no bugs that can insta-gib your progress

2) Challenges in the game, despite being difficult, are always fair

 

These conditions are more than often neglected and the reason why ironman modes can be a frustrating experience. If there is too much RNG involved or there are effects that can only be avoided by extreme metagaming knowledge (i.e. knowing exactly the order in which spells get casted by enemies in BG2), then a game is usually frustrating. XCOM: Enemy unknown basicly violates both conditions: the vanilla game not only had gamebreaking bugs, but it also relied a lot on RNG aswell. If you keep missing that 97% shot three rounds in a row, you know what I mean...

That being said, for some odd reason, I kept restarting said ironman attempt over and over again. I don't know why. Maybe it's because it's such a rare addition in modern games.

When I finally had my first plasma rifles in impossible ironman (which is the point where the game basicly turns incredibly easy, no matter the difficulty setting), I was literally standing up, shouting at my screen: "Who is laughing now, you mother****ing bitch of an unfair RNG-game? Who ****ing kicked your ass?".

 

I can't praise obsidian enough for their decision to implement an ironman mode right from the beginning...

I will probably play my first game halfway through and then start over in ironman mode (I don't want to know all important story decisions before playing my first ironman, but I want to have some founded meta knowledge about the gameplay mechanics first).

Edited July 16, 2014 by Zwiebelchen

[Lephys]

I will probably play my first game halfway through and then start over in ironman mode (I don't want to know all important story decisions before playing my first ironman, but I want to have some founded meta knowledge about the gameplay mechanics first).

You might get enough intel from the beta, if you're partaking. Since it's supposed to be mostly mechanics-testing and hardly any story stuff. More about how things will work than about what will and won't happen, etc.

[Macrae]

There DEFINITELY is

 

My latest try on an ironman in tactical games was XCOM, where I did an ironman + hardest difficulty run.

 

...

That being said, for some odd reason, I kept restarting said ironman attempt over and over again. I don't know why. Maybe it's because it's such a rare addition in modern games.

When I finally had my first plasma rifles in impossible ironman (which is the point where the game basicly turns incredibly easy, no matter the difficulty setting), I was literally standing up, shouting at my screen: "Who is laughing now, you mother****ing bitch of an unfair RNG-game? Who ****ing kicked your ass?".

 

I can't praise obsidian enough for their decision to implement an ironman mode right from the beginning...

I will probably play my first game halfway through and then start over in ironman mode (I don't want to know all important story decisions before playing my first ironman, but I want to have some founded meta knowledge about the gameplay mechanics first).

 

There DEFINITELY is something absolutely charming about the idea of playing a very hard but yet realistic difficulty AND ironman mode ON FIRST PLAYTHROUGH.

Because it maybe is the closest thing one can get to a pure realistic fantasy adventure experience you could ever have: trying to play a game "blind", without knowing anything beforehand, experiencing the story for the first time and most importantly making ALMOST LIFE-LIKE life-and-death decisions because indeed, one error could make you lose everything... You would therefore live each close-call, each life threatening situation and each loss much closer to what you would feel if it was real life, with sweat dropping off your face (and a comparable pride and joy if you succeed of course)..

 

That would mean of course that in every decision you would make you would make decisions much closer to real life decisions you would have to make if you were in that situation, for example, should I take Edwin who is the best mage I can find in my party although I know he's not the greatest guy around? In some situations, you would HAVE to concede defeat to be able to fight another day and take decisions you would never take if you had the possibility to save, for example confronting a certain boss if he gives you a chance to live and avoid conflict, although that would require you to concede some things to him..

 

Of course another "benefit" to playing like this would be that when you lose a non-essential party member you wouldn't be able to load like the little save-scumming cheaters that we all are, but you would simply have to mourn the death of that valiant party member that fought with you to the end and honor his memory.

 

And finally, to be fair and honest here, all of that can happen ONLY if you survive your first playthrough. One error, only one, could make it abruptly end, and after a few more attempts would make you give up ironman mode because in the end we all have a job and family in real life and not infinite time available. So in effect only A TINY MINORITY among us would actually manage to pull that off, ironman hard mode on first playthrough....but it is PRECISELY THAT point that is charming about it, ONLY a few will be able to succeed, a few among many, in other words that would be literally.....epic...

 

So, yes, MY FIRST PLAYTHROUGH WILL BE IRONMAN HARD, and probably the following 5 to 10 retries after that, each probably lasting only a few tens of minutes, best case a few hours, after that I will probably switch to non-ironman hard mode and finish the game and still enjoy it, but at least I will have tried and have had a chance of living a unique, truly epic adventure...

 

(I played and really loved XCOM too and also played first playthrough ironman impossible and....failed miserably for the first 50 or so attempts.. , but that game as you say has an inverse difficulty curve..)

Edited July 17, 2014 by Macrae

[Macrae]

By the way, taken from the official wiki:

 

Difficulty settings

The game's difficulty can be set to three difficulty settings: Easy, Normal, and Hard. Changing the setting generally means adding tactical difficulty, by replacing weaker enemies with more powerful types or increasing how many are present in encounters. On average, you will probably get a small increase in loot, but it's possible to get less in certain circumstances. Additionally, the game's difficulty determines how many camping supplies you'll be able to carry at a given time, limiting the amount of outdoor resting you can do.

Your chosen difficulty setting is also the only thing that determines the scaling of the enemies in Pillars of Eternity. AI won't change based on level of difficulty. Outside of 'Path of the Damned' Mode, there are no scale enemies health, level, accuracy, defenses, etc.

Extra Options

Those are extra things you can do to tweak the game difficulty and overall feel on top of the difficulty setting mentioned above. Players can enable or disable any of these modes, during game creation or later on at any point in the game. All of these options combined are the make up of Expert Mode.

Combat Options

• Perma Death, characters whose health reduced to 0 will permanently die, instead of becoming Maimed.
• Hide Highlighting from area of effect spells and abilities.
• Hide Defense and Accuracy tool-tips.
• Brief vs. Verbose system feedback

Non-Combat Options

• Hide unqualified conversation options.
• Hide Attributes and Skills checks thresholds for conversation options.
• Hide the earned reputation and disposition effect of an option.
• Hide the disposition values in the character sheet.
• Hide companion influence messages.
• Hide explicit quest objectives in Journal i.e. show just the journal text of the quest, without explicit objectives saying what todo.

Challenge Modes

Pillars of Eternity features three game modes: Trial by Iron, Expert Mode, and Path of the Damned, that players seeking extra challenge can opt-into at the beginning of each game. All three modes are optional and can be combined together in any combination on top of the standard difficulty settings.

• Expert Mode - Enable more punitive and demanding game-play elements, in and out of combat, including all the individual options above. The mode is similar to Fallout: New Vegas' Hardcore Mode, Expert Mode. Because it disables all of the common ease-of-use "helper" information, it is regarded by some players as the most realistic way to play.

• Trial of Iron - The player has one save game that persists for the entire campaign... or until player characters die. Trial of Iron save games are distinguished with metal textures instead of wood. when you quit your current state is automatically saved and you can re-enter that saved game to continue playing. However, if your party dies, the game ends and your save is deleted — you must begin a new Ironman game.

The mode is similar to Temple of Elemental Evil's Ironman Mode. It is likely a wink to classic CRPGs of the 80s, intended to restricting any reloads to counteract regrettable decisions, thus increase game difficulty, making it harder for players to abuse save/load to get the results they like also known as Save Scumming.

• Path of the Damned is a spiritual successor to Icewind Dale's Heart of Fury mode. In the encounters, individual combatants will be turned on and off based on the level of difficulty. In an area on Easy, maybe casters are replaced with weak melee enemies. 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.

 

So basically difference between easy, normal and hard will be enemy count.

Expert mode will be basically removal of help messages.

Trial of Iron is Ironman.

And finally Path of the Damned is, contrary to what I had believed earlier, not a mode with goblins having health pools comparable to those of dragons, but rather many more enemies to face. It's basically hard+ difficulty level. Now this is EXACTLY the mode I was hoping there would be..

In this case I think It could even be worth trying to survive a hard expert trial of iron path of the damned on very first playthrough...although I have little doubt on how that will end up.. It would be soooo worth it if I miraculously survive the first 2 hours.. xD

My only worry for PotD mode is this part: "...and the combat mechanics are amplified". If that means basically an enemy character comparable to mine will have bonuses in combat or mine will have negative effects, then this will be a no-no for me. It would be great to have details about that aspect of PotD..

Edited July 19, 2014 by Macrae

[Messier-31]

Does the difficulty level have impact on experience you gain?

[Sarex]

Does the difficulty level have impact on experience you gain?

 

Heart of Fury mode in IWD2 gave massively increased xp.

[PrimeJunta]

That's because IWD2 had kill XP. PoE doesn't. They'd have to adjust the XP rewards for objectives. Doubt they'll do that.

[Jarmo]

 

Does the difficulty level have impact on experience you gain?

 

Heart of Fury mode in IWD2 gave massively increased xp.

 

 

Which is a counterproductive feature in many games.

 

Easy = you get less XP and gold, making the game harder.

Hard = you get more XP and gold, making the game easier.

 

The what now?

 

If players want special rewards for their achievements on expert difficulty settings,

I'd say the players really just want achievement badges but can't bring themselves

to admit it because achievements are so silly and steam evil bad immature.

[Sarex]

That's because IWD2 had kill XP. PoE doesn't. They'd have to adjust the XP rewards for objectives. Doubt they'll do that.

 

XP is xp, doubt it will matter much. The only problem is that you can't scale difficulty for doing an objective without combat.

 

 

Which is a counterproductive feature in many games.

 

Easy = you get less XP and gold, making the game harder.

Hard = you get more XP and gold, making the game easier.

 

The what now?

 

If players want special rewards for their achievements on expert difficulty settings,

I'd say the players really just want achievement badges but can't bring themselves

to admit it because achievements are so silly and steam evil bad immature.

 

Wut?

 

Anyways, heart of fury mode was meant to be played as a new game+.

[Silent Winter]

 

XP is xp, doubt it will matter much. The only problem is that you can't scale difficulty for doing an objective without combat.

 

Sure you can - it would just be harder to get the balance right

(e.g. stealthing - larger detection circles for enemies / more enemies / larger 'presence' circles for allies (I forget what they're called).  Higher thresholds for lockpicking / higher requirements for scripted interactions) (though that may just mean your options for avoiding combat become more limited).

We're still not sure how much of the combat can be avoided - might be a moot point with Path of the Damned having more enemies than you can avoid perhaps.

[Sarex]

Sure you can - it would just be harder to get the balance right

(e.g. stealthing - larger detection circles for enemies / more enemies / larger 'presence' circles for allies (I forget what they're called).  Higher thresholds for lockpicking / higher requirements for scripted interactions) (though that may just mean your options for avoiding combat become more limited).

We're still not sure how much of the combat can be avoided - might be a moot point with Path of the Damned having more enemies than you can avoid perhaps.

 

But that is not really harder, the numbers are just higher. Also you can only increase the numbers up to a certain point.

[neo6874]

As I recall it, Path of the Damned kinda mixes "Easy", "Normal", and "Hard" enemies where appropriate.

 

E.g. "Easy"

an acolyte or two, alone (summoned help maybe).

 

"Normal"

Acolytes with skeletons or zombies.

 

"Hard"

necromancer + skeletons/zombies + summoned things

 

"Path of the Damned"

Skeletons + zombies + acolytes + necromancer + summons

 

Now, it won't necessarily be a huge group in one room (well, sometimes it will be) ... but more likely those "empty" rooms you walked through to get to the boss fight (or cut-scene, whatever) will have these "extra" groups.

Edited July 22, 2014 by neo6874

[Sarex]

I think that was for hard difficulty, not path of the damned, not 100% sure thou.

[redneckdevil]

Ill start out normal and ironman. This way i can get a good view of the game mechanics and what works and what doesnt for me and so when i die problemly quite a bit at very beginning, i wont purposely performing the desease of restartitist but let the game do it for me

[J.E. Sawyer]

When creatures are placed in a level, they have checkboxes for each of the three base difficulties: Easy, Normal, Hard.  A creature marked as Easy, Normal will only appear when the difficulty is Easy or Normal and not at all when the difficulty is set to Hard.  A creature marked as Hard will only appear on Hard.

 

The exception is Path of the Damned.  When this mode is enabled, all creatures are present, regardless of their level of difficulty settings.  So using the previous example, both creatures would be present on PotD even though they would not be concurrently present on any other level of difficulty.

[ryukenden]

Will lethal traps/event return? it was really noticeable in BG2 where a single trap can kill your character if you are not careful. I actually like it.

[J.E. Sawyer]

PoE's traps tend to be extremely damaging.

[Tuckey]

PoE's traps tend to be extremely damaging.

 

Does this depend on difficulty level?

[Lephys]

So, with Path of the Damned mode, is there any supplemental effect from having the difficulty set to anything specific? Or is Path of the Damned its own difficulty setting?

 

Or, to put it another way, if all the creatures are there in PotD, is there any other difficulty-related adjustment that can be made to those creatures (AI, HP/damage, etc.)? Or is the only difficulty adjustment basically the absence or presence of any given creature?

[Namutree]

Sounds like mob focused characters will be more important on path of the damned mode.